Shades
by Emotistic Optimistic
Summary: A little conversation between friends, roughly 15 years before the end of the world, where they reflect on choices and the usefulness of sunglasses.


"You know, Crowley, I've always meant to ask. What are the glasses…for, exactly?"

They're in a tiny dim sum place in Soho, Crowley's treat after Aziraphale took on a particularly boring temptation for him. Which…well, it was a little one. More of a test, really, because taking loans out wasn't _illegal _and it really wasn't _his _fault if the Labour Party actually went through with it. All the better to redeem them later on. Probably.

Sitting across from him, Crowley's nursing a tiny cup of baijiu that never seems to run out. He raises his eyebrows at the question, adjusting the items in question.

"Well, they're supposed to keep the sun out of y—"

"No, I know what they're _for. _But…" Aziraphale hesitates. The restaurant is crowded and noisy—which, along with their positively _scrummy _turnip cakes, is why he loves it so much. But even with all the noise, he takes care to lower his voice. "But you've had them for the better part of four _millennia. _In fact, you're the first person I recall ever seeing _wear _sunglasses."

"Ah, well, that's my own fault." Crowley drains his glass; by the time Aziraphale blinks, it's full again. (Which was…_fine, _except that it took away from the experience of serving baijiu _properly._) "Got a little too chummy with Nero, and—"

"So _you _set Rome on fire?"

Crowley looks personally offended. "Six thousand years and you _still _think humans can't be awful on their own? _No_, I was just getting him ready to take a little bribe and six months later, _boom_, everything's on fire while he's sawing away at 'Chaconne'." He sinks down in his seat. "Well, anyway, he saw my glasses, thought they were utterly brilliant and got his own pair before putting the world's only sunglass-crafter to death." He shakes his head disgustedly. "Complete waste of effort on my part. Could only get away with a trick like that once before word got downstairs, so I had to wait nearly a thousand years for the next pair."

Aziraphale tilts his head ever so slightly. "_Trick_? As in…" Crowley grimaces, but Aziraphale does not stop. "As in you _miracled _them into existence?"

Crowley waves his hand with a sharp _tch-tch-tch!_ sound. "It's hardly a _miracle. _Not my fault if humans can't tell the difference between divine and infernal inspiration."

Too late. Aziraphale is already grinning at him, even as Crowley obviously grows more uncomfortable. "But that's _wonderful. _I mean, sunglasses never seem like a big thing, but they've helped so many people. Why, just think of all the go—"

"I didn't do it for other people, angel, I did it for _my job!_" Crowley snaps, slapping a hand on the table loud enough to draw a few glances their way. They both clear their throats, and Crowley slumps back in his seat, arms crossed. "And anyway, how could it be a help? I've heard plenty of people complain in-earshot about _people who_ _wear sunglasses even when the sun isn't out, _and if they get mad about that, then they've paved their own way to us." He smirks a bit. "After all, the road to hell is paved with…"

"Good intentions?"

"Constant annoyances."

Aziraphale is not convinced—but then, he hasn't been convinced that Crowley's wholly _demon-y_ in at least a millennium. What he _does _know is that trying to push this point will launch Crowley into a tremendous strop, and that would ruin a nice afternoon. So he lets it drop, and returns to his original question.

"Well, that still doesn't say _why _you wear them."

Crowley sinks back in his seat, relaxing again and clearly relieved that the talk of his potential goodness was done. "It's camouflage."

"…_camouflage._"

"It's a necessity! These—" For the quickest half-second, Crowley raised his shades. "—don't lend themselves to subtlety, do they?"

"Well, can't you just…?" Aziraphale waves his hand vaguely. "Hide them?" When Crowley taps on his glasses, he clarifies, "With your powers."

"Nope." Once again, Crowley drains his glass. "Some things stick, no matter how corporeal you are." The glass is full again; Aziraphale considers asking him to just _use the bottle _next time. "You've got some folklore books, yeah? So I'm sure you've seen all the stuff humans think about us, ways to tell we're demons, right?"

"Well, certainly, but it's not true." Crowley raises his eyebrows, and Aziraphale leans forward. "It _is? _But it's ridiculous! Things like hollowed out backs and chicken's feet?" He glances down. "Have you got—?"

"_No_, I don't have _chicken's feet_. But no matter how smart of a demon you are—and, honestly, most of them aren't that smart—something's gonna be off." He nods his head upward. "I think _someone _wanted to make sure humans got a fighting chance against us. Not that they need help getting into trouble."

Aziraphale frowns. "So…well, I'm sorry, but your lot doesn't seem to put much effort into presentation. Don't people…notice?"

"Some do. But humans have a surprising tolerance for weirdness." Crowley shrugs. "They see festering wounds and blacked out eyes and think 'Aw, poor thing, that's unfortunate.' But someone walks up to you with snake eyes and even the stupidest human's going to know that's bad news." He smirks at Aziraphale. "And anyway, even the laziest of us manage better than your lot. Don't see us showing up covered in eyes or as a big flaming _wheel_…"

"_I _haven't," Aziraphale replies sharply, setting his chopsticks down in indignation.

"Well, no, _you_ haven't. But when your standard greeting is 'Be not afraid,' I think your general strategy around talking to humans needs to be tweaked."

Aziraphale sighs, looking upward for a moment before he says, "I _tried._ Can't tell you how many notices I sent to them before they finally _read _one. Must've been around 350 before they caught on that humans like us to be _human-shaped._"

"BC or AD?"

"AD."

"Oh, dear."

"_Precisely._" Aziraphale picks up his chopsticks again, but only taps them against his plate in mild irritation. He glances around, then once again lowers his voice to keep anyone—in the restaurant or beyond—from hearing. "Sometimes…sometimes I think they're so concerned with keeping the _divine plan_ moving that they're just…going through the motions until the end."

"Well, why wouldn't they? It's _ineffable_, isn't it?" Despite the mocking in his voice, Crowley sighs, elbow on the table and chin in hand. "No, it's the same with my side. It's like they're still stuck in the early hundreds—carnal sins and all that. Did you know no one's said _anything _about the M25?"

"What?"

"Not a word."

"But it's horrible!"

"I know!"

"And you even made it a _sigil._"

Crowley waves his hands toward Aziraphale in silent but emphatic agreement. "That's it, that's the thing! Neither of our sides appreciates craftsmanship." Aziraphale can tell Crowley's rolling his eyes behind his shades before he plops both elbows on the table. "But then, I guess that makes sense, doesn't it? We _are_ technically the same."

Once again, the chopsticks are down. "I _beg _your pardon?"

"Oh, _come on_, you're not that thick." Crowley's cheek pulls up in a half-smile. "All of us were angels once. And really, we've still got the same skill set, haven't we? I mean, both of us can do miracles and temptations…"

"Well, _yes_, but it's really more like a test on my side and…"

"Don't circle-talk me, angel, I'm the one who came up with what we say in our memos."

Aziraphale is silent for a moment. He knows, of course, that Crowley was an angel once. And that, on a technical level, a fallen angel _is_ still an angel. But he'd never really _thought _of it before. Well, not quite. The truth was, he'd never _let _himself think of it before now. It was one thing to sneakily befriend a demon; it was another thing altogether to befriend someone who was like you until they made a bad choice.

"Do you remember what it was like?" he asks softly. At Crowley's look, he clarifies, "Heaven, I mean."

Crowley is obviously caught off-guard by the question, but to his credit, he tries his best to look like he isn't. He sniffs and looks to the side, very coolly. "Of course. Can't be eternal torment if you don't remember what you lost, can it?"

That statement alone makes something deep in Aziraphale curl up tightly in discomfort, but now that he's on this trail, he needs to know more. "Do you remember where you were, in the rankings? Or what your name was?" He smiles a bit. "The Almighty has a sense of humor, but even She wouldn't name an angel _Crawly._"

Crowley's lips thin, and Aziraphale wonders if he's gone too far. For someone who's quick to say he 'sauntered vaguely downward' and relishes in his work, Crowley's always been surprisingly reticent about the actual rebellion bit. Just as Aziraphale's about to apologize, Crowley drains his glass. This time, it doesn't refill.

"Everything gets a bit fuzzy," he says, voice carefully kept even. "You remember bits and pieces of what you did before, but really you just know that you can't go back to somewhere splendid. If I had a name, I've lost it, and if I had any sort of ranking, I've lost that, too."

Crowley, Aziraphale knows, has a habit of lying. It's how he's kept himself out of trouble for so long. But this time, he's not sure what the sadder option is: Crowley lying, or Crowley telling the truth.

Aziraphale takes the small ceramic bottle, pouring miraculously warm baijiu into Crowley's glass and one that's very conveniently shown up beside it. They take the cups. Neither drink. Crowley's attention seems to have drifted to the large family beside them. They aren't doing anything of note, really; just the usual family bickering and talking over each other. But beneath the carefully neutral expression, Aziraphale thinks he can pick up a hint of wistfulness.

"They don't know how lucky they are, do they?" Crowley asks quietly. "They can ask all sorts of questions, or believe in flying spaghetti monsters, or even outright say God isn't real. All without punishment. They can do whatever they want, cosmic plan be damned."

Aziraphale knows he should say that the _good _ones don't do that. But he's thought about this for far too long to even consider giving a heaven-approved response. Instead, he looks to the family as well, taking a moment to note just how _human _they are.

"That's their gift, isn't it?" he says after a moment, voice very soft. "They can make choices, for better or worse. That's why She made them. And, I think, why She loves them." He swallows, looking back at his drink as if it were suddenly very interesting. "Have you ever wished…"

He stops himself. Going into that territory would be dangerous, for the both of them. But the little twitch in Crowley's face says that he knew what Aziraphale was going to ask. And, likely, that he agrees.

They sit in silence. The room, Aziraphale notices, feels strangely full and loud. He wonders if he's noticing it more because of the lull in conversation, or if he's suddenly aware of all the potential choices—good and bad and somewhere in-between, but all wonderfully human—in the room. A part of him wants to be bitter over the fact that he has to stay where he was put, that even a small deviation like lunch with Crowley comes with immeasurable risk. But a much larger part of him never wants to leave the dim sum restaurant, to rest in a moment of being surrounded so fully by humanity and sitting across from the best friend—the _only _friend, really—that he's ever had for the rest of eternity.

Honestly, it feels more like heaven than Heaven ever could.

"We might have been friends," he says, trying to keep from sounding breathless as he looks back at Crowley. "Before the rebellion. We likely wouldn't remember."

To his surprise, Crowley smiles—one of his real ones, which are few and far-between outside of when he makes mischief. "Oh, yeah? And what would that be, commenting on how perfectly temperate it is? Gossiping about the way a seraphim said 'Holy, holy, holy' that day?" He leans forward, gaze hard enough that Aziraphale can feel it through the shaded lenses. "We wouldn't have been friends then. Not like we are now. You know why?"

Aziraphale can feel the edge of an answer tickling his brain, but rather than thinking, he simply asks, "Why?"

Crowley smiles—a nice wide one, those were very rare—as he pulls down his glasses, low enough that Aziraphale can see the slitted eyes beneath. "Because, that one moment when we talked at the Garden and every moment we've talked since, angel, we were like _them_." His head tilts to the family beside them. "And we _chose _who we became friends with, cosmic plan be damned."

Aziraphale's eyes widen, and a smile of his own curls at his lips. "Yes…yes, I suppose you're right."

He's still very desperate not to leave just yet, but he knows an end when he sees one. And…well, it was a good thing to know, wasn't it? That, if nothing else, he could _choose _to keep meeting with Crowley. Still secretly, still at a great risk. It wasn't much, really, but it was _his._

Well, his and Crowley's. And, truth be told, having a friend rebelling with him suddenly shed some light on the whole falling business. Maybe…there was more to falling than being evil. After all, choosing a name, making decisions, having freedom even in just one moment…

Oh, no, he couldn't, not ever. But he could…see how someone could.

He chases away those thoughts by returning to the heady joy that fills him as he remembers his choice, and he holds up his glass. "Well, then, my dear boy, to choices."

Crowley, shades long-since back in place, smiles as he clinks the tiny glasses together. "To freedom." He raises his cup to his lips, adding quietly, "And maybe one day, we'll get a little bit more."

The thought alone is ludicrous, they both know. It's not like they can just turn their backs on their respective groups. But if it came to it…

Well, it's much easier to make a choice together, isn't it?


End file.
